Not the Sort of Divinity One Would Sketch

Mark T. Coppenger, from the article The Perennial Challenge to Inerrancy in the Fall 2010 issue of Southern Seminary Magazine:

Whenever I read that someone like Freud or Feuerbach says that God’s a comforting figment or projection of our imagination, I wonder if they’ve ever read the Bible. For our God is not prone to indulge earthly conceits and agendas. Rather, He is insulting, intrusive, inconvenient and insistent – not the sort of divinity one would sketch if left to his own devices.

Amen to that! I’m always baffled by the God-as-crutch sneers that emanate from the depths of unbelief. The God of Biblical (and Christic) Revelation is demanding and challenging – to say the least.

A common corollary to this is the “Jesus was so nice, but you’re so mean” meme (often accompanied by a claim that the “Old Testament God” is not the same as the “New Testament God”).

My favorite? “Jesus invited everyone to his table.” Ummm, Jesus was an itinerant preacher who didn’t own a rock to lay his sleepy head on, never mind a table. Rather, he invited himself to eat at others’ tables, and then told them to stop sinning or they would spend eternity suffering in hell. The only thing he offered at his “table” was his own body and blood- an offer most people found so repugnant they turned and walked away.